Droopy couplers

With all the different mounting schemes dreamt up by the various manufacturers and importers over the years, you would help the effort to answer your question by providing; the manufacturer of said caboose, a catalog number of said caboose, and what would really help are some clear, in-focus pictures-which are always worth the proverbial thousand words.

Good luck.

I echo what D&H 65 said, above

But - I will add that some coupler adjustment can be made by just pushing up on the coupler and mount. This applies mostly to older couplers and trucks - like a typical Lionel Postwar unit - which are primarily steel construction. Late die-cast and plastic designs are less amenable to this.

Make sure you have a stable grip on the truck if you do this.

Is there play in the coupler? Can you move it up and down easily without the truck moving?

Sorry for the delay in getting a picture. This is what I'm talking about. It is the Lionel Big Boy caboose (6-82202). The tender is from a VL Big Boy.

I have the same issue with my caboose, only the droop is so bad the caboose always gets left behind as the coupler falls out of the next car.  Mine has a lot of up and down play, but the screw is in tight.  I sent an email to Lionel support about it when I got it, and they never replied.  So it's sat on a shelf until the time I feel like taking it down and bending the coupler bar, which won't be until I get my loop of O72 track down for my layout.

I had the same problem with an Atlas O car. I took the car back to the store and the store owner pulled a brand new set of Atlas trucks off the shelf, swapped them out and handed the car back to me. Now, that's service. Atlas had a bad design that is now history.

I wouldn't call this droop so much as mismatch. I see this mostly on Lionel from the MPC days onward and certainly is prevalent with the multiple manufactures in the 3 rail O gauge market. Since the couplers usually are mounted between the body and the truck’ bolster on the  swivel fastener the only fix is to raise the coupler; that is if it is not an integral part of the truck itself. This of course will also raise the body. This effort can range from replacing the truck with one that has a taller bolster or placing shims between the bolster and the coupler tongue thus raising the coupler and the car's height above the rails. NMRA O scale standard is .688 inch from rail head to coupler base. This is scale 1:48 what exactly the common dimension for 3 rail O gauge is I don't know off hand which is weird because I'm more than 30 miles from home at the moment and carrying a brief case which makes me an "expert".

Bogie

Argh... I never thought I would read and reply about a thread about their droopy caboose..

But it looks to me from the photo above the coupler and the caboose platform is too low?